Passion for the Game

I ran across this note at the Sports Illustrated website, labeled simply enough: "My Hero". Yes, it's baseball, not fastpitch, but it caught my eye because it reminds me of so many of the fastpitch players I run across. Perhaps some you know. We know they're not doing it for the money:

Pat Borders turns 41 on Friday. He's been on 18 different teams during his career (Toronto, K.C., Houston, Anaheim, the White Sox, St. Louis, Cleveland and Seattle in the bigs). Now he's back with the Mariners after being called up from Class AAA Tacoma to take over for the struggling Ben Davis. Borders is a gamer, through and through, the kind that would accept an assignment to the minors -- and like it. The '92 World Series MVP with Toronto, Borders brings something to the Mariners that seems sorely lacking at times on many clubs. Passion. Yes, old guys have passion, too.